Footsteps
by Kitsune Moonstar
Summary: Lady Une gets a rather odd surprise during the Christmas season.


Author's note: I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters. This is set after Endless Waltz and slight AU.

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**Footprints**

Lady Une let the curtain fall back and cover the window with a sigh. It had started to snow outside. She was feeling more than a little melancholy tonight. She was alone in the house, and despite the roaring fire and bright Christmas decorations, she couldn't find any cheer. Marimeia was off at a friend's home for a slumber party with her school friends. Lady was happy for her, the girl deserved friends and a childhood, but her absence was keenly felt by her guardian. With neither her ward nor work to occupy herself with, Lady found that she kept lapsing in to memories.

She didn't actually have a lot of good memories of this time of year. But there were a few. Most of them had involved Treize. One particular Christmas especially stood out to her had been two years before the whole mess with the gundam pilots had started. That year it had been just herself and Treize staying at Treize's hunting lodge up in the mountains. Lady had actually enjoyed that. There was something nice about being able to get away from everyone. It certainly had made her job easier for the two weeks that they had been there. Treize had been very clear that he wasn't taking any outside calls, so her duties had been limited to taking messages and whatever Treize needed of her at the moment. It had been the closest she'd ever had to a vacation since she'd first become Treize's aide.

But what she remembered best were the long walk silent walks the two of them took out in the snow and then coming back inside to curl up in front of the fire with hot drinks. Treize had a tendency to play with her hair ribbons as he watched the fire, tugging them out of her braids one by one. It had really been a lovely time. Lady shook her head, trying to dispel her memories. It did no good to linger on the past. That was lost to her now. What she had was the present, and that was what she needed to focus on.

With another sigh, Lady got up headed to the kitchen in an attempt to find something to distract herself. She finally settled on whipping up another batch of Christmas cookies. They went through them pretty fast between Marimeia's fondness for sweets and the rounds of parties Lady was forced to attend due to her position as Head of the Preventers. She was nearly up to her elbows in dough when the phone decided to ring. Lady cursed and tried to extract herself from the mixing bowl as quickly as possible. She managed to get her hands passably clean before grabbing the phone.

"This is Une."

There was a pause, and she could hear someone breathing before a female voice finally spoke. "Excuse me, ma'am, but I'm one of the nurses at Sacred Heart Hospital. We have this patient in one of our wards that we've been trying to find their next of kin for, but we've had no luck until now. He saw a picture of you in a magazine the other day, and he thought he recognized it. I was hoping you would be able to come down and see if you could identify him for us."

Une wasn't quite sure what to say to that. It wasn't the type of request she normally got. She could think of a number of reasons a man with amnesia would recognize her that would not be good for either of them. Lady wasn't proud of many of the things she had done in the past, but they had seemed necessary at the time. She sighed. She really should go.

"What time would it be convenient for me to visit?" Lady asked.

"Any time before six. Thank you so much, ma'am."

Lady hung up before sighing. It didn't take her long to turn off the oven and stick the dough in the fridge. Then she bundled up in a coat, scarf, hat, and gloves against the cold and headed out. It was better to get this over with as soon as possible. Then she would come home, pour herself a glass of wine, and finish her baking.

Thankfully, it was a short drive to the hospital. It took a little time to find parking and then get decent instructions from the receptionist on how to get to the ward in question. As she approached the ward's reception area, Lady took a deep breath. Time to get this over with.

"Excuse me, but I was asked come and see if I could identify one of your patients."

The woman behind the desk nodded. "Let me page Nurse Pierce for you, and she'll take you to the patient in question."

The woman in question arrived in less than five minutes and quickly escorted Une through the corridors and towards a sitting room area.

"The man's suffered a number of burns and injuries to his face among other things," Pierce informed her. "It's not enough that it has totally changed his appearance, but it has made finding a match more difficult, we think he was probably in a mobile suit when his injuries occurred. They are fairly consistent with a lot of the injuries that we're used to seeing after severe suit damage in a battle."

Lady nodded. That meant the man was probably a former member of OZ. She steeled herself for the moment when she actually saw the man, but nothing could have prepared her for what she found. Lady could see why perhaps the hospital staff would have trouble identifying the man; the left side of his face had been badly burned. The doctors had done a good job of repairing the damage, but he would probably have scars for the rest of his life. But she knew that face so well, it wouldn't have mattered if the scars covered more than the left side. Lady Une would know Treize Kushranada anywhere.

Thankfully, she had years of practice when it came to keeping her composure and thinking on her feet. She honestly didn't know if it was the best idea to inform people that this was Treize, especially since he didn't remember who he was. Still, the fact that he was actually alive filled Lady with such hope and joy that she was sure that at least some of it showed on her face. The man looked up at her and met her eyes.

"I know you, don't I?"

Une smiled gently. "Yes. You do."

She turned to Nurse Pierce. "Can we have a few moments alone please?"

The woman nodded. "Of course."

Lady waited until the woman was out of earshot before she spoke again. "I supposed the real question is do you want to remain who you were. And that is not my decision to make."

"Just who was I?"

"Treize Kushranada."

His eyes widened with that piece of information. He met Une's eyes and seemed to search them for a moment. Then he smiled gently.

"I can't remember, and it isn't a decision to be made lightly. Still, I would very much like to get to know you. Again as the case might be."

Lady smiled back. She didn't know what was going to happen with this, but neither of them would be going through it alone. And perhaps that was what was really important.


End file.
